[Vigilanteman]

I've heard that 1 out of every 17 people of European lineage can trace their ancestry back to Charlemagne if they can get back that far.

Charlemagne is in the line of almost all European royalty and, somewhere in that line, almost every descendant had bastard offspring who bred into the general population.

Long story short is a handful of ancestors = nearly all of the population is the rule rather than the exception.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Charlemagne was the son of a usurper.

[Jolla]

My wife teaches at a french school and 2 kids have their heritage line back to Charlemagne

[BenLurkin]

trace their ancestry back to Charlemagne

yup

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Yup, I’m one of them.

My aunt traced our lineage back to 1374 in England. Then I later learned that one of our ancestors-—Thomas Dudley-— a governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony-— is descended from the English King Henry II of the Plantagenet Dynasty. Henry II, in turn is descended from Charlemagne, so that puts me into the Charlemagne club too, presuming all of this research is accurate.

[EternalVigilance]

I have at least one direct line back to Charlemagne. But more noteworthy, at least in my book, is that if you're descended from Charlemagne, you're descended from his grandfather, who kept the Muslims out of Western Europe. His name, of course, was Charles Martel, aka The Hammer.